[dallaskruse]

unless I'm missing it, I don't see metronome clicks available for dotted quarter for 6/8 or 12/8 time.

So it would sound the click on beat 1&4 for 6/8 and 1,4,7,10 for 12/8.

When setting the tempo in the song details, it would be very helpful to see which division of the beat gets the beat. E.g. Quarter Note = 84 for 4/4 or Dotted Quarter = 54 for 6/8 or 12/8.

90% of the time when charts are written in 6/8 or 12/8, the tempo is marked in dotted quarters.

Also, would it be advantageous to include the METER of the song in the song details? There's tempo, key, song duration ... would anyone else find it helpful to see the meter as well? I guess I could just use a Custom field though?

[dallaskruse]

I love using the metronome in MSP ... but find it a little cumbersome to have a different tempo marking in the APP vs the tempo markings on my chart.

There's a great iOS app called TEMPO by frozen ape that seems to have all the metronome options right.

It seems to me that defaulting the tempo to "DOTTED QUARTER =" when the time signature is 6/8 or 12/8 would make sense. No?

[schnautza]

Perhaps the more "foolproof" rework would be to remove reference to quarter notes, eighth notes, etc. For the time signature options, simply have a blank for number of beats. Then have a blank for subdivision of the beat, giving options of 1, 2, 3, and 4, (and maybe 6 as well) which may represent eighth notes, triplets, or whatever works for your particular time signature. This makes the "denominator" of the time signature irrelevant and gives more freedom to the user. 

So, for example, in 9/8, set it on 3 beats, and subdivision of 3. Then you set your tempo at what is marked in the music as the dotted quarter with no conversion required.

Of course, for complex meters like 7/8 this means you'd have to input the 8th note tempo regardless since it doesn't divide nicely, but that's no different than the current setup.

Also, it would be really cool to have options for applying specific sounds to specific beats. Say I have a 7/8 meter, I could tell it heavy accent on 1 and light accent on 4 and 6 to easily hear a 3+2+2 feel, leaving beats 2, 3, 5, and 7 as standard click sounds.

[dallaskruse]

Perhaps the more "foolproof" rework would be to remove reference to quarter notes, eighth notes, etc. For the time signature options, simply have a blank for number of beats. Then have a blank for subdivision of the beat, giving options of 1, 2, 3, and 4, which may represent eighth notes, triplets, or whatever works for your particular time signature. This makes the "denominator" of the time signature irrelevant and gives more freedom to the user. Of course, for complex meters like 7/8 this means you'd have to input the 8th note tempo regardless since it doesn't divide nicely, but that's no different than the current setup.

Also, it would be really cool to have options for applying specific sounds to specific beats. Say I have a 7/8 meter, I could tell it heavy accent on 1 and light accent on 4 and 6 to easily hear a 3+2+2 feel, leaving beats 2, 3, 5, and 7 as standard click sounds.

I agree on these points.

The "accent" option in the metronome is a little confusing as well. 

As of now, for 12/8, I can just keep a 4/4 click but select "TRIPLET 8TH" note. Problem is, that metronome click is accented on the first 8th of the triplet even when I don't want it to. If there's any meter changes within the song, the metronome sounds can really be confusing.

I would suggest definitely an option for dotted quarter tempo markings for compound meters and negating the accented clicks when selecting "TRIPLET 8TH" in 4/4 time.

just my .02

[Zubersoft]

There are a lot of improvements and enhancements that can be made to the metronome. I've started compiling a list of things to work on at some point (and studying different applications that have features I want to support), but I'm not sure exactly how this fits into the schedule yet. It really depends how critical the metronome changes would be to most users. I definitely appreciate the feedback and suggestions and will be sure to incorporate them into any changes I make. When it comes to supporting different kinds of accents/sounds for different beats, I would need to get my hands on significantly more samples than I currently have that work well in a metronome (meaning they work even at the fastest bpm, which usually means they have to be short). I'm not sure exactly where to go to get those kinds of samples - I'll have to do some research.

Mike

[dallaskruse]

There are a lot of improvements and enhancements that can be made to the metronome. I've started compiling a list of things to work on at some point (and studying different applications that have features I want to support), but I'm not sure exactly how this fits into the schedule yet. It really depends how critical the metronome changes would be to most users. I definitely appreciate the feedback and suggestions and will be sure to incorporate them into any changes I make. When it comes to supporting different kinds of accents/sounds for different beats, I would need to get my hands on significantly more samples than I currently have that work well in a metronome (meaning they work even at the fastest bpm, which usually means they have to be short). I'm not sure exactly where to go to get those kinds of samples - I'll have to do some research.

Mike

Mike,

If you're in need of Metronome samples, feel free to email me. I have a lot of metronome samples I've compiled over the years that i use in studio sessions.

Also, Frozen Ape has an iOS app called TEMPO that a lot of people use. The UI in regards to how it handles it's SET LISTS has some serious quirks but the basic process for metering seems to work and be popular.

AFAIK, there's no other PDF music app like MSP that allows one to assign tempos to songs and to start immediately as the song is pulled up so PLEASE DON'T CHANGE THAT ASPECT! 

The only other thing I'd throw in my thoughts about are when inside a tune and the metronome is running ... IF one needed to bring the click down a few BPM's the metronome skips and doesn't stay in time. IF it's possible to be able to adjust the metronome while the metronome is playing and have it stay fluid, that would be GREAT!

[Zubersoft]

I'll definitely take you up on that offer for the metronome samples.

As far as adjusting the BPM while the metronome is running, the reason it skips right now is that, in order to generate audio that doesn't fluctuate in tempo over time, I create an audio file on the fly that is one entire loop of the metronome. I then feed that audio file into the high performance audio library I'm using. So every time you adjust the tempo, it generates a new audio file which restarts the playback (creating the skip). If I generated the audio data on the fly, then adjusting the tempo in real time would be possible, but it will require some large design changes. I will certainly work on this at some point to improve the metronome usability.

Thanks,
Mike

[dallaskruse]

Absolutely NO issue on the skipping of the metronome. It was just a thought.

I emailed you the metronome samples.